Sunday, January 15, 2012

I Enjoy Year 'Round Blooms

Carol, of May Dreams Gardens, hosts Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day the 15th of each month. She has quoted Elizabeth Lawrence, who said, "We can have flowers nearly every month of the year." Well, I may not have any outdoor blooms right now, but I do have some flowers from summer that I can enjoy, because I dried them. I also have a few indoor blooms, and lots of flowers on items around the house.

I didn't keep up with harvesting the lavender this year, but did get some hung.

Here's a wider view of where the lavender is hung, along with some yarrow. I love the ad from I think, the 1940s. I have had fun finding the towels from the ad to display. The words on top say, "Even a man can do a good job with Martex Dry me Dry." The ad also states the towels are from 25 to 50 cents each. I paid more than that for them. Here's a link to other posts I've done on some of my collections.

Here is another way I enjoy flowers year around. I like to change these out from time to time.

In the past, I've posted a number of the blooms I have on the walls. Some, just lean.

I almost took a different photo of this, but decided to be willing to show I sometimes have some clutter. I think these hydrangeas are from 2010, because I don't think I got any dried this year.

Here are some blooms from this year.

I didn't dry as many straw flowers this year, because I liked how they looked outside. Still, I am glad I got some.

Another source of winter blooms are the lovely books on gardening, of which a tiny part of my collection is shown here.

This begonia did not bloom this summer. I'm glad it is now. It's a nice touch of color in what is now the grandsons' toy room.

I have 3 holiday cactus plants that are about finished blooming. Still, they are nice and colorful.

The other two are in the garden window in our dining room that we put in what used to be a bedroom. It looks like I need to do some cleaning in here.

I have had 'Naomi' the longest, and can remember the name, maybe because it is the name of a person.

It's January, and I'm always happy when the days are getting longer. I hope the rest of winter goes by quickly. In a couple months there may even be some outdoor blooms. In the meantime, the seedheads are fun to look at, and seeds are available for the birds to eat. Already, some of you in warmer zones are getting some hellebore blooms, so the countdown to spring is under way!

'Black Jack' sedum:

Ironweed:

I love the look of the empty pods of the hibiscus with the blue sky in the background.

Joe Pye Weed:

Wild Quinine:

The strawflowers I didn't get dried, in the shadow of my legs:

I hope this finds you well. There are lots of colds and such going on around here.

16 comments:

I love the dried flowers. This was my first year drying anything---I did a lot of herbs, which turned out really well. I'm definately going to try flowers next year. The colors seem to stay so vibrant--quite pretty, Sue!

Sue, even though I am a follower of your blog, I was not able to leave a comment. I copied and will paste it here.

Hi Sue,I think I am a member of your blog. I'm sorry you have been having problems with spammer(s).

Our winter has been way too mild. I wouldn't mind it if it just continued and we didn't have winter weather in April. Still, some of the plants that should be dormant aren't, and I wonder what will happen if winter finally does what it normally does.

Dried blossoms from your summer garden made an ingenious post. Great idea for a winter theme. (Good thing I went back and looked up ingenuous before I hit send. You are sweet and innocent but I really wanted to compliment your cleverness.) You had me with the first pic of the lavender.

Happy New Year Sue! I love the cactus blooms. I was excited to see them because I was lucky enough to have one bloom for me this December. I had not cared for them in the past but now I like them! Did you do anything in particular to keep " Naomi so long. Please share I'd like to learn how.

I'm so glad you shared some photos of your seed heads, Sue...they are wonderful, especially the Echinacea...so spiky-looking! I'm definitely spending my winter curled up with a few gardening books and magazines as well!

I welcome comments and questions from anyone, including those who do it anonymously. Some people find my posts by doing searches, and I like hearing from them. I guess spammers won't even read this message, but I will delete spam as soon as I see it.

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About Me

I am married with 2 grown children, two grandsons, and a granddaugher. We live in the house on a corner lot that my husband grew up in. I have been talking him out of more grass over time in order to increase space for gardening. We have veggies, annual, biennial and perennial flowers, some wild and/or native, and herbs sharing growing areas. A number of years ago, we had to have the tree in our front yard cut down, and I put mostly native plants in this area. I love seeing insects, especially bees and butterflies frequent the blooms, and have some plants for the caterpillars to eat.

Certified 10/09

Pussytoes

Amsonia hubrichtii

Golden alexanders

Purple milkweed

Purple poppy mallow

Narrowleaf mountain mint

Rattlesnake master

7/17/13

Short-toothed mountain mint

7/18/13

Echaneaceas paradoxa and pallida

7/22/13

Wild quinine

7/19/13

Whorled milkweed

7/20/13

Ironweed

7/25/13

Wild senna

7/25/13

Grayhead coneflower 7/25/13

7/25/13

All photos are taken by me, and are current unless stated otherwise. They enlarge when clicked on, or you can push "control" and "+" several times, until the photos are a size you like. (If I am in the pic, then it was taken by my husband.)

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